Scratch
by Graphospasm
Summary: My talent isn't THAT special. I don't hurt people, I keep the mouse population in check, tongue-baths save water... I'm practically a model citizen! So why should me turning into a cat on occasion bother that loud guy in my gym class so much? KUWABARAxOC!
1. Chapter 1: Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

_READ THIS__: Now, before I get any "OMG KUWABARA AND YUKINA ARE TOGETHER" comments, please note that I will be explaining why they are not an item later on in this story. Also note that Kuwabara and Yukina do not end up together in the anime, nor do they do so in the manga. It's really a one sided relationship, and Togashi actually gives good reasons for why they SHOULDN'T be together (believe it or don't; doesn't matter to me). So, with the promise to make this all make sense not too long from now, on with the story! =D_

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Scratch

Chapter 01:

"Kitty, Kitty, Kitty"

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The screaming is what woke me. I leaped from my bed with a pounding heart and flew into the living room, wild-eyed and with my hair flying all around my face, to find my mother standing on a chair with her skirt hiked up past her knees and a look of utter terror plastered across her open mouth and dilated pupils. "Get it, Tora, get it!" she screeched, pointing with shaking hands at the small gray creature eating a cracker in the middle of the carpet. It was still dark outside, meaning it was probably before six o'clock in the morning, and with a sigh I walked toward her. She held out her hands and screamed at me to stop. "You'll scare and then it'll get away," she hissed at me, trying to whisper, apparently, and failing.

"Mom, it's a mouse," I said in the calmest voice I could muster under the early morning circumstances.

"I know that!" she snapped, her quick temper making her fear take flight for a moment. "Get it out of here, Tora!"

I sighed again and held up my hands, advancing on the snacking creature with quiet steps.

"Not like that!" Mom screeched, doing a sort of jig on the chair in agitation. "Do it the other way!"

"It's too early to do it the other way," I snapped, but there was no placating her.

"Do it!" she commanded with a point from her index finger, and in defeat I dropped to my knees on the carpet. "This is one of the very few moments in which it might actually come in handy, so make use of what my genes gave you and _do it, now_!"

"_Your_ genes?" I said. "_What_ genes? You can't do it!"

"That's not the point, Tora, and you know it!"

I glared at her. "You owe me double allowance this month," I told her, and then I changed.

The change is an easy thing, as easy as breathing or blinking or twitching my fingertips. I just will it, and it happens: my limbs grow shorter, my hair recedes and then erupts all across my skin, and my spine lengthens past my butt so my tail can lash at the air (if I'm in a bad mood, of course, which I was that early Monday morning). My ears inch up my skull until they crown my head like little watchmen, my eyes get bigger, and my vision sharpens to the extreme. The sensitive whiskers that can sense vibrations from many feet away sprout outward, and I can't ever help but comb them into order with a paw whenever the change finishes running its course.

All in all, I think I make a rather attractive tabbycat.

"Get it, Tora!" my mom urged, and I looked up at her as I stepped out of my puddle of discarded pajamas and hissed her into silence. Calling up the feline instinct that emerged whenever I took my cat form, I crouched low on the ground and began a very slow stalking of the munching mouse. Mother muttered small encouragements that my cat's ears easily detected, and if my face had been capable of human expression I was sure I would have looked peeved. As it was, however, I appeared only as a cat creeping up on a hapless mouse.

It sensed me coming, however, and bolted when I was only a few feet away. I jumped after it and pounced, and I was then rewarded with the feeling of a wriggling ball of fur struggling beneath the pads of my paws. I kept it pinned with one paw and looked up at Mom, who then cheered when she saw my tail twitching in triumph.

"Don't eat it!" she told me as she got down from her perch. "Your breath will stink. I'll go get a book so I can squash it."

I meowed at her. She paused. We stared at one another, and I am proud to say that I won that contest. Cats don't blink like people do.

"Fine," she said at last, and I picked the frightened rodent up between my teeth. It tasted awful and twitched far too much, but I was not in the mood to kill it. "Use the kitty-door. Just be sure to take it far from here, OK?"

I meowed around my mouthful, and on silent feet I padded toward the back door. The sun had begun to rend the sky in the east, and I shot Mom a reassuring look on my way out through the cat flap. I tried to ignore all the interesting smells I started to pick up with my feline nose (a harder feat than one might think, let me reassure you) as I wandered toward the fence lining the postage-stamp of our tiny backyard. With a single pump of my back legs I reached the top of the wooden structure, and then I hopped into the alleyway beyond. True to the adage I landed on my feet, and I walked with sure, even steps I passed the overflowing trashcans on my way toward the street beyond. Small residential houses lined the narrow causeway, and I loped a few houses away before crawling beneath a bush and letting the mouse slip out from between my teeth. It lay on the ground, dazed for a moment, before running off at full speed with a frightened squeak.

_Yeah, yeah, run away, _I thought as I watched it go. _Lucky for you, I don't like Stuart Little for breakfast. _

I headed back quickly, wanting to take a shower (and brush my teeth so I didn't taste mouse for the rest of the day) before school, and when I hopped through the kitty door I found Mom waiting for me.

"I put your pajamas in your room," she said, tucking a strand of her curly black hair behind her ear. "Thanks for doing this for me, Tora."

I butted her shin with my face, rubbing against her and purring in a reassuring sort of way, and she knelt so she could scratch me beneath the chin. Eventually I left her and headed for my room. I met Dad on the way, nearly colliding with his houseslippers in the narrow hall separating the bedrooms from the living area.

"Oh, good morning, Tora," he mumbled through a yawn. My overly-tall father was wearing a bathrobe that barely reached his knees, and the sight of his hairy calves so early in the morning made me both gag and giggle all at once. "Why are you like that this early?"

"There was a mouse, dear!" Mom called from the kitchen.

"Oh," he said, dropping to his knees so he could touch my ears. "I always said that this is what we got for naming you Tora," he joked, and then he said: "Well, go get ready for school. Your paws are muddy."

I looked down and, sure enough, they were. I meowed forlornly, and he laughed as I tried to shake them clean.

"You don't bathe like real cats do," he said. "I always wondered about that."

I shot him an unamused look as I left and thought: _What, like _you'd_ be OK with a mouth full of mud? _

Luckily I had left the door to my room wide open, as I had done with my bathroom, so I didn't have any trouble sitting down on the cold bathroom's tile floor and initiating the change back to my human body. Once finished, I stood up and looked in the mirror above the sink for any issues. My eyes were the same honeyed-brown color as always (I got them from my father, who is half German), and my skin was the same pale shade I was used to. My hair was also unchanged, the black strands reflecting my mother's Japanese heritage. My features were all Asian, too, and just like my mother's almond-shaped eyes and heart-shaped face.

I always make sure to check myself after a change. Once, on a horrifyingly sunny grade-school day, my cat-pupils didn't go away when I changed back. That's a mistake I never want to repeat again.

"Shower," I said as I turned around to face the bathtub. It was only big enough for a person to stand in (I live in a small Tokyo house; what were you expecting, a Jacuzzi?) but nevertheless it felt so good to scrub the mud out from between my toes with a bristly brush and sweet vanilla soap. I didn't linger, though, because I still had to get dressed and eat, so I shampooed my hair and got out without much ado. My frumpy school uniform (which I had tailored in order to make less frumpy, for all the good it did me) went on next, and then I dried my hair and applied a little makeup for appearance's sake. Eventually I was ready to be seen, and I grabbed my book bag and shoes on my way to the kitchen's breakfast table.

"Please say there aren't any more mice for me to deal with," I said upon entering the kitchen. Dad was drinking coffee and reading the paper, and Mom was cooking something on the stove.

"Only fish!" Mom exclaimed.

"And maybe a dish of milk if you're interested," Dad joked.

"Just the fish, please," I said, and Mom pointed at the already-made place at the table. I sat down and started to eat, savoring the taste that was most assuredly not mouse-flavored, and then Mom set a kerchief-wrapped box down next to me.

"Your bento," she said as I stared the pink bandana pattered with comical fish skeletons.

"Nice touch," I said, pointing at the bandana with my chopsticks.

"It's bad manners to point with those," Mom scolded me, and she ruffled my hair with a laugh.

I bolted the rest of my food and glanced at my watch. I still had plenty of time before school, but I liked taking time on my morning walk so I didn't want to dawdle. "Thanks for the meal," I said, bowing at her playfully, and I grabbed all my stuff and made to leave.

"Wait," Dad said, looking serious. "That bento."

"Yeah?"

"Be sure to bring the box home. I left the last few of mine at work on accident."

"Good going, Dad," I said, scowling at him, but then I swooped in to give him a kiss on the cheek before Mom and I hugged one another goodbye.

Is it weird that my parents and I are so casual with one another? As I walked out of the house and started off down the street, I thought about the way my friends interacted with their parents. The relaxed atmosphere in my house wasn't something I found in other homes too often, but I suppose that, given my rather eccentric ability, my parents and I needed to find something calm to ground our otherwise odd communal life back down to earth.

I mean, wouldn't we go crazy otherwise? It isn't every day your daughter sprouts whiskers and starts craving fish the way a monkey goes bananas for... well, bananas.

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_NOTE:_

_Next chapter will be much, MUCH longer. This post was just to get the ball rolling and introduce my OC, Ookawa Tora. (Tora, for the record, means 'tiger' and is a very common name for cats in Japan, which makes Tora's dad's joke about her name make more sense.) Let me know what you think so far, and thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2: Catnap

Scratch

Chapter 02:

"Catnap"

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No one at school knows what I can do, of course. Not even Umi, my best friend who likes to joke about how my name reflects my personality but not my compact body, has any idea that I can turn into a housecat at a moment's notice. Personally, my heart wouldn't mind letting Umi in on my little secret, but my head knows that doing so would be stupid. Umi's the type of girl who's obsessed with things like fortune telling and astrology, and if she ever found out that some of the things she believed in might actually be real... well, I'd like to think she'd just subscribe to a few more magazine and maybe buy a few more good-luck charms, but in reality I know that she would likely quit school to pursue a life of witchcraft and paganism. Not that there's anything_ wrong _with that, of course, but I know her mother would absolutely kill me if she found out that I was the straw that broke Umi's back and made her go absolutely nuts over the paranormal, and since I am deathly afraid of her mother I have no plans to show Umi my little talent any time soon.

School isn't a fun place for me. I hate being cooped up and I stare into space an awful lot, making me a perennial thorn in the faculty's side, and although my grades are decent I get scolded most days for not putting that much effort into my work. I also tend to nap in class, but luckily for me I'm a light sleeper and I have the uncanny ability (irony) to wake up whenever a teacher begins to notice me nodding off. Still, the days drag on for far too long and I end up gazing out the window whether I mean to or not.

Today was probably going to be no exception, and when I saw Umi lounging by the school's front gate, presumably to wait for me, I made a mental note to tell her to poke me if I got too spacey during homeroom. She was wearing out school uniform, but with her own little adjustments thrown in: a black bow at her throat as opposed to the red tie around mine, black combat boots in lieu of my smart ballet flats, and tons of bangles that wrapped around her long wrists like something out of a gypsy movie.

"You're gonna get in trouble for all the jewelry," I told her as I jogged up, eying her black leather choker and myriad of bracelets with a critical glance.

She rolled her eyes. "My horoscope said good things about today, and besides, it's not like the teachers here are really gonna stand up to me about it."

Umi was, among other things, very, very tall, so tall that most people couldn't see her eye to eye (and the combat boots only heightened matters (pun)). She was also the daughter of one of the school's wealthy benefactors, and the teachers all knew it. She could get away with practically anything, and that included rampant dresscode violations.

"Still," I said as we walked past the gate and across the school courtyard, "you should set a good example for the underclassmen." The pavement beneath our feet felt warm through the sole of my shoes, and above the school building a bell chimed, signaling we had ten minutes until class started.

Another eyeroll from Umi. "Neither one of us has ever been one to follow the rules, Tora." She flipped her hair—black and worn long, like some sort of ghost from one of her favorite old folktales—out of her face with one hand as we entered the room with the shoe lockers. Ours were on opposite side of the same row, so we had to raise our voices to talk over the structure between us.

"Did you do the math homework?" I asked her as I hooked my index finger into the back of my left shoe and popped it off. I did the same with my right and opened my locker, where I then exchanged my outdoor shoes for my indoor pair.

"Yeah," she said as I closed the locker. "Busted my ass to get it done, too." I heard the clink of her locker opening, and after that came the sound of several pieces of paper hitting the floor. "Crap," she muttered, and I walked around the lockers with my shoes clutched in one hand. A pile of sealed letters—probably six of them or so—lay scattered at her feet.

"More confession letters?" I asked as she collected them with her black-nailed hands.

"Four are from girls," she said in disgust, flipping through them. "Seriously, I know I'm their _sempai _and all, but this is getting ridiculous."

Girls tended to idolize Umi for her rebellious attitude, rich family, and inspiring height (hey, that last one sounds silly, but it's true). Boys... well, few of them measured up, so to speak, but that never stopped them from trying to cozy up to her. I was pretty much her only friend; we bonded way back in the first grade, when things like social status didn't matter much. She was also notoriously pretty in a I'm-really-tall-and-thin-and-could-be-a-model-if-it-weren't-so-main-stream-and-I-hate-main-stream kind of way, so even without the rich factor she'd still be quite the piece of work.

"Let's just get to class," I said, laughing at her flabbergasted expression. "And if any of the letter-senders approach you, just say you have a boyfriend at another school."

She dumped the letters into her satchel. "Or I could just tell them I'm dating you. I'm sure they think that already, anyway."

I didn't say anything to that as we walked to homeroom. It was kind of true, in a way, because Umi and I did spend the majority of our time together...

"I guess that explains why some of the girls here don't like me very much," I said as Umi slid the door to our classroom wide open. Serving to illustrate my point quite well, a chorus of people shouted greetings at Umi, while very few of them said anything to me. Umi did not acknowledge anyone, however, and kept her nose held high in the air. It struck, then, how popular she was despite her lofty attitude.

_Eh, pretty people can get away with anything,_ I thought as I settled into my desk. A wall of windows lay about a foot to my left while Umi sat directly to my right, and the arrangement was just how I liked it. "Oh, and Umi?"

"Yeah?" she said as she started arranging her textbooks.

"If I start to zone too hard, wake me up."

"Will do."

The lesson began shortly after that, but the subject was boring so I won't write out a play-by-play. The only reprieve from boredom came when lunch rolled around. Umi and I pushed our desks together so we could eat, but that diversion was a short-lived one and, soon enough, we found our noses shoved back into our school books. An hour or so later, however, we were able to flee the classroom in favor of the gym so we could attend our PE class.

"I hate school," I said to Umi as we walked through the halls toward the locker room.

"This is out last year in high school," she reminded me as we entered the sweat-scented changing room filled to the brim with our half-naked female classmates. We went to our lockers (side by side, luckily enough) and I shoved my bookbag and empty bento box into mine. "Next year we can go to university or get jobs, and we'll be out of this place for good."

"About damn time," I said as I pulled on the shorts and t-shirt that made up my PE uniform. Just then, however, the PE teacher marched into the room and blew her whistle loud enough to wake the dead. We all lined up and followed her into the gym, where she had us line up against the wall and stand at rigid attention.

"Today is dodge-ball day," she said as my eyes wandered over the gymnasium. I liked the place; compromised of two side-by-side basketball courts, its ceiling was lined with windows that allowed natural light to filter in, and the wooden floors had been polished to a pale yellow gleam. Bleachers—the kind that can be pushed up against the wall to allow for more room on the gym floor—had been pulled out for sitting space. Pennants hung from the tall walls, proclaiming that our baseball team had gone to district a few years prior and a myriad of other athletic accomplishments.

So busy was I with studying the familiar gym that I did not see our teacher until she had placed a hand atop my head. "Two," she said in a firm voice, and then she put her hand on Umi's head. "One," she said, but then Umi glared at her and she muttered: "Uh... two, on second thought."

"What was that all I about?" I hissed as the teacher moved away down the line of waiting girls.

"Numbering us off for teams," Umi said, and that's when I noticed the doors on the other side of the gym burst open. In marched a stream of boys in PE uniform, lead by the male PE coach, and when I looked at Umi in confusion she said: "Had you been listening, Tora, you would know that the boys are joining us. Co-ed teams. Very rare. The girls are primping as we speak."

I glanced down the line. They were all indeed asking one another for opinions on hair and makeup.

"I'm glad we're not like that," I said to Umi, and she smirked.

"I don't need to work for good looks," she said, and then the coach signaled that the ones were to go to the left side of the gym and that the twos were supposed to go to the right. We dutifully veered right, and through lowered eyes I watched as the guys got numbered off with ones and twos. All the other girls whispered behind their hands as the men started to head over (most looked nervous, although a few of the more suave ones kept their coolfaces intact).

"Observe the mating habits of the teenage human," Umi dutifully intoned. "Giggling is thought to attract a potential mate, although said mates are typically dropped by the end of the week as dictated by the latest fads. The fate of the human race appears to hang in the balance, but there is little hope for survival if this lot is what we're all hinging on."

I accidentally snorted when I guffawed in response to Umi's teasing, and the girls near us edged away so as not to be associated with my unattractive laughter. Umi curled her fingers into claws and hissed at them, making them recoil even further.

"This is fun," she said, grinning, and then the coaches blew their whistles and started setting red playground balls down on the half-court line. The guys all tensed, preparing to run for them in order to impress the girls with their prowess, and when the coaches vacated the court with a cry of 'GO!,' Umi and I hung back as watched as everyone else dashed their hearts out. Balls flew through the air, pegging people willy nilly, and as one rolled back to us I said: "You can get it."

She grabbed it, smiled, and with one powerful thrust of her long legs she leaped forward and threw the ball at the opposing team. It hit a girl on the thigh with a smack.

"Goal!" Umi said as the defeated female slunk off the court, and we exchanged highfives.

"Maybe we should go up to the front and try to get out on purpose," I said to her in a voice most conspiratorial. "We can go hang out on the bleachers."

"Fine by me," she said, and we darted toward the half-court line and into the range of the dodge-ball artillery. People gave us a wide berth, and one of the girls actually offered a ball to Umi (which she took and threw, hoping to have it get caught by a member of the opposing team, but they all acted like they didn't see the lazy and oh-so-catchable toss floating through the air). Our plan to escape failed completely because no one was brave enough to chuck a ball at Umi and, by extension, myself.

"Damn your popularity," I said to her, but she only grinned when we became the final two members standing on our team. As we faced off against the last man standing on the other team, I turned to Umi and whispered: "I can't throw worth a darn! How are we going to win?"

A coach blew a whistle on the sidelines. "No talking!" she yelled.

"Leave it to me," said Umi, and she grabbed a ball and chucked it at the boy on the other half of the court. The sphere whistled out of her grasp, spinning and hissing through the air with the force of her throw, and it seemed right on target until the very last second when the boy shifted his body out of the way without warning.

"Ack!" he exclaimed as he turned to glance at the ball as it rolled across the floor. He had a deep voice, and a rocky one, and it fit his looks to a 't'. "That would've hurt!"

But Umi, not sparing him a moment's reprieve, picked up another ball and threw it. He jumped out of its way with a dexterity that belied his very broad shoulders, improbable height, and muscular frame. He didn't look like a person built for speed, but that didn't stop him from ducking out of the way of every single one of Umi's throws.

"You've got a great arm!" he called after she threw a particularly fierce shot at him (which he had dodged with little trouble but a facial expression that seemed comically afraid).

"Is it weird that I'm getting annoyed?" she said through clenched teeth. She moved in front of me, wanting to see more of the playing field.

"Fight back, Kuwabara!" a blonde boy yelled from the edge of the bleachers.

"What?!" 'Kuwabara' narrowed his eyes at the boy and yelled: "I don't hit girls, you idiot! You know that!"

"Then catch a damn ball!" yelled the blonde, looking peeved. For some strange reason a pudgy janitor with a shaved head and a gray jumpsuit (who didn't look too much older than myself, come to think of it) was standing next to the bleachers with a mop and a bucket of soapy water, and he started yelling, too.

"Kuwabara, I know you can't fight girls, but at least try to do something! You look like an idiot out there!" he said.

"Shut up, Okubo, I don't need your help, OK?!" Kuwabara snapped back. Umi threw another ball and he dove out of the way with a yelp. "But if she pegs me with one of those it'll sure hurt!"

"So quit talking and keep dodging!" Umi said with a gleefully insidious smile, and she began playing in earnest. Eventually the boy on the other team got so fed up with her constant assault that he at last picked up a ball and waved it at her.

"OK, I'll do it!" he said, holding the ball up like a shield. "Don't think I won't! If you just give up now I won't have to hurt you."

"As if!" Umi called as she threw what seemed like the thousandth ball. He moved out of the way with a squeak and chunked his ball back at Umi, who stepped smartly to the side and out of the way.

I, however, was standing directly behind her, and the ball collided with my face. It didn't hurt too bad, not really, but a small trickle of blood dripped out of my left nostril regardless.

"Ohmigod, Tora!" Umi screeched, dropping her ball as she darted up to me. "Ohmigod, your nose is bleeding! We have to get you to the nurse right now!"

"It doesn't hurt," I said as I reached to wipe the blood away.

"Did I... hit her?" I heard Kuwabara say in disbelief. "What the heck, I actually hit her!" Feet pounded over the gym floor. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You stay away from her!" Umi hissed, wheeling on him. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and started to lead me off the court, heedless of Kuwabara's cries of apology. I didn't look at him, mainly because I was a little shocked by the blood on my fingers and the knowledge that it had been an accident; I didn't need to get an apology. Still, Umi was livid as she glared at the coaches (who tried, for a brief moment, so stop us from leaving) and walked me to the infirmary. The nurse within could only prescribe ice and pressure, but Umi insisted on staying with me the entire time and, when the bleeding stopped, she made me lie down for a nap.

"You could have a concussion!" she said as she tugged a blanket over me.

"But I don't," I said.

"You just stay here," she said, ignoring me, "and I'll got get you some restorative tea. Have a nap and you'll feel so much better. You can skip school for the rest of the day." She glared at the nurse. "Right?"

The nurse nodded, eyes fearful. "Right," she said.

"Good," said Umi. "I'll go inform the teachers. Sleep!" And then she was gone, on a mission and unstoppable because of it.

"I think I will take a nap," I said to the nurse, and I rolled over and nodded off.

If there's one good thing about being a cat, it's that naps are easy to slip into.

I awoke some time later, when Umi started shaking me. I sat up, confused by the sunset-looking light that came in the infirmary windows, and I mumbled: "What time is it?"

"School's been out for a few hours," Umi said. "I called your parents to let them know what happened. They said to tell you that they went to an office function of your dad's and that they won't be back until late." She began to study her nails, looking bored and beautiful. "I have a car waiting for me outside. Want a ride home?"

"Sure," I said, throwing back the sheet covering me and swinging my legs out of bed. Umi handed me my school bag straight away.

"Got it out of your PE locker, where you left it," she said, and then she handed me my uniform. "You left this, too."

"I should change," I said, looking down at the PE uniform I was still wearing, and Umi turned her face away so I could have a bit of privacy (although I didn't need much; she and I had changed in the same room dozens of times).

"Let's go," she said when I was done, and as we left the infirmary and then the entire building she said: "I got all of your make-up work and put it in your bag, along with copies of the notes."

"You're always taking care of me," I said, laughing, and she pushed me lightly on the arm.

"That's what best friends are for," she said as we neared the school gates. A long black car with dark windows idled near the curb, and as the driver got out and opened up the door for us I stopped walking.

"Something...." I said. "Something isn't right."

Umi turned to look at me, one leg in the car already. "What?" she asked. "You hungry?"

Her comment helped me remember. "My bento!" I exclaimed. "It was in my PE locker. Ugh, Mom's gonna kill me if I don't bring that home!" I turned and jogged a few steps toward the school. "Don't wait for me! See you tomorrow!" I yelled over my shoulder. "I gotta go get my bento!"

"Hey, Tora, wait—" Umi called, but by then I was already long gone, back inside the school and running to fetch my lunch box.

* * *

_NOTE:_

_Okubo and Kirishima are not OCs. Those are the real names of Kuwabara's friends from middle school. Why one of them is a janitor (Okubo) and why one of them is a student (Kirishima) and why one of them is missing entirely (Sawamura) will be explained soon. I used their manga names, you should also note._

_I enjoy writing about the relationship between Umi and Tora. They're funny together. Friends are so nice =3._

_We saw Kuwa-chan in this chapter! Yay! Next chapter we get a TON more of him._

_Many thanks to my reviewers! AkaMizu-chan, L1f3, and saiyuri-dahlia!!!_


	3. Chapter 3: Catnapped

Scratch

Chapter 03:

"Cat-napped"

* * *

The door to the locker room was locked, of course. "Oh c'mon, just open for me, will ya!" I grumbled as I jiggled the doorknob. Cursing when the damn thing did not give way, I backed up down the hall and thought of all my options. Very few made themselves available, because any teachers I could ask for keys were gone and the custodial staff was off-duty. In fact, the only reason I had been able to get into the school in the first place was because Umi had, apparently, requested that the front doors and the school gates remain open for her express use.

What I wouldn't have given to be a school trustee in that moment.

"This sucks," I said as I walked into the darkened gymnasium. Walking around helped me brainstorm, but the gym creeped me out and I quickly retreated back into the hallway outside.

That's when I saw it.

_Hello, ventilation shaft,_ I thought with a smirk. The grilled-off passage was on ground-level and just big enough for a small tabby cat to squeeze through, and with glee I noticed that the grate itself was held down by four small metal tabs—not even a real screws or nails or anything! I crouched beside it and took off the grate; then I peered into the darkness within and whispered a brief prayer.

"Please, please, please go to the locker room!" I said. I had used a similar shaft to get into a classroom once, but that had been in another wing of the building and I had no way of knowing if that architectural feature carried over to all parts of the school. Still, that didn't stop me from jogging back into the gym and walking over to the bleachers (which were still pulled out from today's gym class) and crawling beneath them. The triangular space made by the bleachers and the wall was filled with dustbunnies and more than a few cobwebs, but I wasn't too picky as I crawled under and over various support struts in an attempt to get to the far end of the seats, which were pressed up against another wall. I wormed my way into the most extreme corner and initiated the change.

_Ugh, dusty,_ I thought as I stepped out from under the tent formed by my discarded shirt. I sneezed a second later, so I took a moment to clean up my face with my tongue and paw before I padded out from beneath the bleachers and walked back to the vent I had earlier vandalized. I slipped into it and started moving, calculating in my head where the locker room was in relation to the vent. At one point the tunnel system took a sharp curve upward—taking me into the ceiling, presumably—and eventually I found myself standing on the edge of another grate that looked down into just the place I wanted to be.

_Score!_ I thought as I saw the lockers and tile floor beneath me. The vent opened up just inside the doorway to the locker room, but it wasn't even screwed down so all I had to do was hook my paw through the slats and tug it up and out of the way. I dropped to the tile floor about eight feet below me and changed back to my human form a second later; with a triumphant grin I undid the locker room door's deadbolt. I stood up and stretched, and then I walked over to my locker and punched in my combination. It opened with a click and I picked up my empty bento with a small whoop of joy, and that was when I heard something rattling around inside the lunchbox.

"What's this?" I murmured as I popped the lid off the box. A circle of thick red string with several beads threaded onto it fell into my hand, and I squinted at it in the room's dim lighting. There were three clear crystal beads with two steel-colored square beads separating them, and I noticed with a rush of pleasure that the two square beads were inscribed with the hiragana characters for 'to' and 'ra.' A note fell out of the bento a moment later.

_Dear Tora_, the note read in Umi's cultivated handwriting. _I hope you feel better soon! I made this power bracelet for you during class. The crystals have special healing properties and I placed a curse on the metal ones (that guy who hurt your nose won't like them, that's for certain). It also says your name, of course, so how's that for the personalization trend that's all the rage these days? Love, __Umi._

"Aw, thanks Umi," I said as I tucked the box under my arm and pulled the bracelet's slipknots to their biggest setting. I would have just grabbed my bento and and my new bracelet and left right then and there, but the cat-me couldn't carry the box and the human-me was adverse to prancing through the school naked, so with a sigh I put the bento back in my locker and went to the door. I opened it a crack, placed my bracelet on the floor, and then I changed back to my cat's body. With a happy 'meow' I pulled the bracelet over my head with an expert wriggle of my paws, turning it into a collar, of sorts.

_Damn if I don't look good,_ I thought as I leaped onto the sink counter and studied myself in the mirror mounted above the basins.

I had to run and hide, though, because that's when I heard voices down the hall.

_Oh holy crap, this is so not what I need right now,_ I thought as the voices drew nearer. They were male voices and I was in a girl's locker room, but that didn't stop me from darting beneath the sinks in an attempt to hide myself. There were three voices, I eventually figured out, and they spoke loudly to each other with little regard for eavesdroppers (not that there should have been any, but still).

"Okubo said he threw it into the girl's room," said the first voice. It was deep and gravelly and rather intimidating, and I did not like the sound of it. Oddly enough it felt familiar to me, but considering how small the high school was I wasn't too surprised by this. There was also a fumblingly friendly edge to it that sat at odds with its sheer depth.

"It's probably locked, you know," said another, higher voice. It was snarky and quick, riding high on the consonants the way most fast-talkers do.

"Yeah, just come back for it tomorrow," said a third voice. This one was a smooth tenor, pleasing to the ear and one that probably had a decent-looking owner.

"Guys, I can't do that, it has my homework in it!" the first voice protested, and then the door's handle jiggled. "Huh?"

"Well, what do you know, Kuwabara" said voice number two. "It's actually open."

"Since there's no telling where Okubo hid the damn thing, why don't the two of you go wait for me at the gates," said the first voice. "I'll hurry, I promise."

"All right, but don't be too long. Mom's expecting me home soon," said the third voice, and I heard two sets of footsteps fade away down the hall. My heartbeat sped up a bit and I felt my hackles rise as the owner of the first voice came inside, and—

_Please leave the door open!_

—shut the door behind him. His feet walked past my shadowy hiding place, and I watched him walk to one of the benches set between the rows of lockers and bend over to check under it. The motion gave me a clear view of his face.

_That's the guy who gave me the bloody nose! _I thought when I saw his narrow brown eyes and brown hair. He wore his hair in a rather odd style, like he had tried to gel it up or slick it back or something, and it had a coppery tint I had not noticed when we had gym together. He wore a muscle shirt on this fine occasion, as well as a pair of patched up jeans, and with a cry of triumph he pulled one of the school-issued satchels out from under the bench.

"Gotcha, Okubo!" he said, hugging the item to his chest with a grin and a chuckle. "Can't pull one over on me, nuh-uh!"

_So happy over a stupid bag, _I scoffed, and then I remembered how excited I was over my lunchbox. Had I been in the possession of eyebrows, one of them would have twitched._ Wait, never mind._

The big guy—really, how tall was he, over six feet at the very least?—tucked the bag under his arm and walked by me again, and when he laid his hand on the doorknob to leave I tensed, ready to pounce. I flew out of my crouch the second the door cracked open, and I sprinted headlong at the crack in an attempt to get out.

_No human can move faster than me, _I thought as I sped toward him. But, to my complete surprise, he turned and looked straight at me before I was even halfway across the room. His eyes widened, and with reflexes unparalleled—now all those epic dodges in gym class made sense!—he slammed the door back into its frame.

_Oh no, oh no no no,_ I thought as I skidded, trying to brake before impact. The tile floor was slippery, however, and I couldn't slow down in time to avoid—

_Thunk._

—hitting the door head on and face-freaking-first.

"What the?!" Kuwabara said, and he knelt beside me. I lay there, dazed, as he reached out a hand and touched the tips of his fingers to my back, and when he did a small shock went through me.

"Whoa, you're staticy!" he said.

_Must be residual from the vents_, I thought.

"I'm sorry, kitty!" He scooped me into his arms (sans shocks this time) without further ado. I struggled before realizing that he was holding me perfectly—my legs didn't dangle, my tail wasn't squished, and I had all of my paws under me. "Are you hurt? Aw man, I love cats, I didn't meet to hurt ya!" He held me in the crook of one elbow and began a gentle pat-down of my body with his other hand. "You feel OK, no bones out of place, but maybe I should take you to the vet to be safe—what's this?" His questing fingers had found the bracelet hanging from my throat, and he twisted the beads to the back of my neck so he could read them.

_Crap, _I thought as he squinted in the dark.

"To, ra," he said. "Tora. Is that your name?" He let the beads drop. "Real original name."

_Well f*** you,_ I thought.

He kept talking. "Well, you're obviously not a stray since you're wearing this, but maybe I should take you home and—"

_That won't do,_ I thought, so I didn't let him finish his sentence. I pushed away from him with a hiss and hit the ground at a run._ Gotta get back to my clothes, _I thought as I bolted down the hall, heading for the gym at a full-on sprint (and for those of you who own cats, you know just how fast that is). The door was wide open, thank the higher powers, so I ran across the gym floor and darted beneath the bleachers. My cat's eyes pierced the darkness like needles through felt, and with a click of claws on wooden flooring I jumped atop my crumpled uniform and prepared to start the change.

However, I'm lucky that I didn't get that far, because not a second later Kuwabara poked his head beneath the bleachers and locked eyes with me.

_He can't see me_, I thought, staring at his crouched body and narrowed eyes._ It's too dark, he can't see me, he can't—_

"Cat's eyes glow in the dark, dummy," he said in an authoritative tone of voice, and I blinked. "You cats never learn to keep your eyes closed. Eikichi makes the same mistake when he hides under Shizuru's bed."

I had no idea who Eikichi or Shizuru were, but that didn't stop his logic from being any less true. With a grunt Kuwabara dropped to his knees and began to crawl toward me, his broad shoulders and tall back fitting with little room to spare beneath the bleacher seats, and I didn't try to run away. He would find my uniform no matter what I did at that point, so I just let him come close, reach out a hand, tuck his fingers over my back and beneath my stomach, and then pull me toward him over the dusty floor.

"Gotcha," he said as he pulled me into his embrace. My uniform skirt, however, was still hooked in my claws, and it came with me. "Huh?" he said as he heard the cloth scrape against his pants. It took a moment of fumbling for him to locate all of my uniform, but once he did he simply bundled the pieces of cloth next to me and started to crawl (on three clumsy limbs since one of his arms was devoted to holding me) out from under the bleachers.

He stood up and leaned backward until his spine crackled. "Phew, it's good to stand up," he said, grinning from the sheer pleasure of it, and then he rounded the bleachers and sat down on the first row. "Let's see what that stuff you had is. Do you have a nest down there or somethin'?" He kept me pinned to his knees with one gentle hand as he unfolded the skirt with the other. "Whoa, a girl's uniform," he chortled, pleased, but then his face went beet red. "I shouldn't be caught with this. People might think I stole it." He paused. "There's no dust, though, so it wasn't down there for too long, which means it belongs to someone going to school here now, and..."

With caution he flipped the skirt's waistband inside out, which revealed the nametag my mom had sewn into it when I first bought the uniform.

"Oh, it does belong to someone," he said. "Ookawa Tora." A light bulb went off in his brain. "Hey, that's the name on your necklace, kitty!" he exclaimed, rubbing my ears with a grin. His touch was soft despite the fact that his hands were more than twice the size of my skull. "So 'Tora' isn't just your name. I'll bet Ookawa-san is your owner, right?"

_Oh no,_ I thought, seeing exactly where he was going with this. _Oh no, don't you dare—_

"I'll just swing by her house on my way home and drop you and the uniform off," Kuwabara said, face resolute. "That's what any good guy would do."

_That's what any _busybody_ would do, you mean, _were my thoughts on the matter.

Kuwabara frowned. "But even if a bracelet is prettier than a collar, it needs more of your home information, doesn't it? How am I supposed to find your house without an address? You master must be very irresponsible!"

Can I mention how hard it was not to bite him just then?

He stood up. "Oh, I know, I'll ask Okubo! He has keys to the registrar's office!" He grinned down at me. "C'mon, kitty, let's get you home!" he said, and he stood up.

My panties and bra, at that moment, fell out of the bundle of clothing, and if his face was any indication Kuwabara was more than a little happy about that turn of events. I watched in horror as he picked up my underwear (a matching set of white with pink lace and ribbons) and stared at it, a dorky smile on his face. Then, however, he blushed like a tomato and rolled it very quickly back into my skirt and shirt.

"No, no, no, no, no!" he said as he put the bundle inside of his bag, shaking his head all the while. "Nuh-uh, no way, those are a _girl's,_ Kuwabara! Don't be a pervert!"

_Aw, he's kind of like a gentleman,_ I thought as he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. _A big, blundering, slightly perverted gentlemen who likes cats. _

"Don't worry, kitty," he said, looking down at me. He picked up his bag, made sure he had a good grip on me, and then started to leave the gym. "I won't do that to your master's stuff. I'm a good guy through and through." He paused. "Don't tell on me though, please?"

_Too late for that, _I thought, and as he took me outdoors I remembered that I had forgotten something.

My bento, that cursed lunchbox from hell, was still sitting pretty in my locker.

* * *

_NOTE:_

_Yowza. Tora's in quite the pickle. How the heck will she get out of this one?! _

_Next chapter, Kuwabara and Tora actually speak to one another as human-people. What will they say, ZOMG?!?!?_

_Sorry these chapters are kind of rough and short. I write and post them on the same day, usually, and editing is a quick and somewhat inaccurate process. Still, I tried to keep it neat, so enjoy!_

_Thanks so much to my reviewers: Konsui's Little Brother, TwilightFever-FutureCullen, Sparrow-chan, saiyuri-dahlia, WickedLovelyDream, AkaMizu-chan, and Holy Star! You all made my day!_


	4. Chapter 4: Like a Cat on a Hot Brick

Scratch

Chapter 04:

"Like a Cat on a Hot Brick"

* * *

Incidentally, Kuwabara didn't have to go get Okubo-the-janitor-with-keys and ask him to break into the registrar's office in order to find my address because Okubo, low and behold, knew exactly what it was from memory.

Creepy, right?

"No way, Okubo, how the hell do you know that?" Kuwabara said, mouth dropping open as he stood with Okubo and another boy at the school's front gate. Okubo, upon hearing my name fall out of Kuwabara's big mouth, had rattled off my house's street and number as if he went there every day. Had I been able to, I'm sure I sure I would have looked more than a little freaked out by this revelation.

But Okubo just shrugged. "I ran a paper route through that neighborhood. Her parents were a client and I saw her through a window once or twice, and then I saw her at school, and..."

"You looked in her window?" said the other boy. He was the one with the snarky voice from earlier, but I did not recognize him as a classmate (he was also wearing street clothes, so I had no way of knowing if he even went to my school or not). He had trimmed his black hair into a severe buzz cut, but his colorful basketball jersey, baggy jeans, and black windbreaker made him look more like a street punk than a military man.

"That's messed up, Okubo!" Kuwabara said, voice reaching higher octaves than normal in distress.

"Good going, buddy!" said the guy with the buzz cut, and Kuwabara smacked him roughly on the back of the head.

"Shut it, Sawamura! Peeping is bad!"

The pair traded heated looks as Okubo spoke up again.

"No, it wasn't like that," he said, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck. "Just an observation, was all. Do you need me to write down directions to her house?"

"Thanks, buddy," Kuwabara said, and he fumbled for paper and a pen in his bookbag before saying: "Here, Sawamura, hold this little guy for me, will ya?" He then dumped me (with care but little ceremony) into his friend's arms.

_'Little guy?'_ I thought as I squirmed in Sawamura's inexperienced grip. He smelled very strongly of men's deodorant spray, and I sneezed as the fumes assaulted my sensitive feline nose. _Guy! I'm not a guy!_

"You still haven't explained why you have this thing," Sawamura grumbled as I got settled.

_I'm not a 'thing,' either_.

"I found 'im in the locker room," Kuwabara explained as he handed Okubo things to write with. "Then he ran off and went under the bleachers. Ookawa Tora's uniform was under there so I thought I'd take it back to her, along with her cat."

Sawamura's fingers trailed over my neck. "Hey, look, this cat's collar says 'Tora' on it," he said as he fumbled with the bracelet.

_No shit, Sherlock, _I thought.

Kuwabara nodded. "That's what makes me think the cat is Ookawa-san's, though I have no idea why she would bring her cat to school."

I froze. _Gotta think up an excuse for that_.

"Here's a map and the address," said Okubo, and he handed Kuwabara a small sketch of a map and a list of worded directions.

"Thanks, Okubo," Kuwabara said as he studied the map, and then his eyes lit up. "Hey, I know where this is! I pass this street on my way to school in the mornings!" He then thanked Okubo for the billionth time, and I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. Luckily, no one noticed that very human expression crossing my cat's face.

"It's fine, Kuwabara," Okubo said. "I owe you one, since you got me this job and all."

"Aw, it was nothin,'" Kuwabara mumbled as he put the directions in his pocket and plucked me from Sawamura's grasp. He seemed strangely embarrassed by Okubo's words.

Sawamura punched Kuwabara lightly on the arm. "It was _not_ nothing! You had to beg them for that favor on your hands an knees!"

"Shut up!" Kuwabara said, going red across the cheeks, and he pushed past the boys. "Meet up at the arcade later," he called over his shoulder, and then the two of us were off.

_He begged the principal for his friend?_ I thought as my classmate carried me unerringly toward my home. _Wow. What a good, humble guy. Definitely not what I expected from a first impression._

I mentally kicked myself.

_You need to be prepared to lie to him, not compliment him_, I thought as Kuwabara took a wrong turn and then backtracked, glancing around to make sure no one noticed his little slip-up. He kept shifting me from arm to arm as we walked, and I realized how tiring holding me in the crook of his elbow must be getting. With a wriggle I twisted so I was facing him.

"Whoa, Kitty!" he said, stopping dead on the sidewalk as I wormed up his body and hooked my claws into the shoulder of his coat. _Hold still, dammit, _I told him. Cars passed us on the street, and two short elementary school kids walked by with unabashed stares. Kuwabara glared at them as they gawked at the wonder of a highschooler carrying a cat through a neighborhood street in broad daylight, but I didn't let their little exchange stop me from pulling myself onto his shoulder and winding my body around his neck.

_There, you big idiot, _I thought as I settled down across his shoulders. The mischievous part of me took over, and I flicked his nose with the tip of my tail. He batted the banded tail out of his face with his index finger, but he did smile a bit, too. _Now you can carry me better._

"You really are a houscat," Kuwabara said when the shock of my random movement wore off (also, I thought: _Wow, you're perceptive. More than you know, actually._). "Definitely not a stray. It took me ages to get Eikichi to ride around like this."

_So Eikichi must be his own cat's name,_ I deduced as we picked up the pace. He didn't say anything else to me as we neared my area of the neighborhood, but when we turned onto my street I felt my heart beat a little quicker. By then, however, I had come up with a plan to get away from Kuwabara without arousing much suspicion, which was nice considering how we had started this walk of doom without one.

_Here it is,_ I thought as we passed the houses preceding mine. _The moment of truth. _

"Let's see," Kuwabara said as he took the paper from his pocket. "You live in house eight, so... oh, there it is!"

My home is one story tall and only a few rooms wide, with a postage stamp of a front lawn and not much more yard in the back. There's a white fence (picket, because my mom is cliché like that) bordering the front yard, and there's a taller and more solid white fence cupping the back. We have a one-car garage, which is rather extravagant for that neighborhood, and the space between our small home and the even smaller garage is filled by a seven-foot-tall privacy gate that leads into the backyard. Kuwabara, of course, walked through the opening in the picket gate so he could walk up to my porch, and he took a deep breath of my mother's carefully tended beds of rosebushes as we passed them.

"What pretty flowers!" he said, stopping on the short walkway leading to my porch in order to inspect a bush of yellow blooms. "Kurama would love this. You don't see many flowers in the city."

_You don't see many cats get carted through the city on someone's shoulders, either, _I thought, and with a flex of my back legs I jumped off of his shoulders and hit the ground.

"Wait, Kitty!" he called, wheeling around as I darted beneath a rosebush. "Hey, come back, you'll get lost again!"

_Oh, shush,_ I thought as I ran, under the cover of rosebushes, towards the gate to the backyard. My hulking classmate was somehow able to stay hot on my heels without ruining any of my mother's flowers, and I felt his hands grab at me as I leaped to the top of the fence and then jumped over it. _Whoa, I barely made it, _I thought as I found myself standing in one of the flowerbeds Mom planted in the backyard. This one, however, held azaleas. _That guy is _really_ quick on his feet. What the hell?_

"Wait, cat!" I heard him say from the other side of the gate. "Well, at least stay in the yard so I can tell your owner where you went! Please?"

I meowed at him.

"Oh, good, you're still there!"

My mental eyebrow twitched.

"Well, I'm gonna go ring the doorbell. Ookawa-san should be home by now since it's so late."

_Just leave the uniform on my doorstep and be done with it! _I thought as I walked toward the back door and, by extension, the kitty door. Kuwabara was still babbling in the backyard when I pushed through the flap and entered the laundry room. I changed into my human body right there (after making sure to take the bracelet off of my neck so I wouldn't choke to death, of course, and then I rescued the bracelet off of the floor and slipped it on my wrist). After that I grabbed a towel from a basket of clean ones sitting on top of the washing machine, and then I walked into the kitchen.

"Mom? Are you home?" I called, wrapping the towel around my naked body, and then I saw the note on the kitchen table.

_Dad and I are at an office function tonight, _it read. _There's food in the fridge. Do your homework! Love, Mom._

I remembered Umi telling me that they wouldn't be home tonight a second later.

"Love you too," I murmured, and then I all but jumped out of my skin when the doorbell rang. The doorbell has a nice ring—a very merry ping! pong! sound—but it nonetheless made me feel like I was under fire. Without a sound I sped back into the laundry room and pulled on a random assortment of clothing that ended up being underwear, a tanktop, shorts, and a pair of tall socks. None of it really matched, but that hardly mattered as I crept to the door on silent feet and peered through the peephole.

I had a heart attack right after that. Kuwabara had pressed his face right up close to the hole on the other side. He pushed the doorbell again a second later, scaring me even further, and then he started knocking.

"Are you home Ookawa-san?" I heard him say, voice muffled by the four inches of solid wood separating us. I dropped to my knees and started to crawl toward the window that looked out onto our porch, which ran the length of our house. I peeked over the sill to find Kuwabara standing with a stiff back before the door, one hand lifted like a robot's as it hovered above the doorbell.

"Go away," I muttered, watching him ring the bell and knock a few more times. But then, as if on cue, he turned my way. I ducked out of sight, heart leaping into my throat.

_Oh dear sweet mother of Christ, _I thought as I heard his footsteps cross the porch. They stopped right in front of the window, so I pulled my legs up to my chest in hopes he couldn't see me.

I flinched when he tapped his knuckles on the window pane.

"Uh, is that you in there Ookawa-san?" he asked, voice fuzzy as it filtered through the windowpane. "This is Kuwabara Kazuma from school, and I think I have something that belongs to you."

I said nothing, praying to no god in particular that he would just go away.

"Uh... I think I can see your toes."

This time my eyes really twitched, and with a curse I extended my legs, stood up, and went to the door. "Sorry, I thought you were a salesman," I sighed as I flipped open the deadbolt and drew the door aside. _No getting out of this now._ "What did you say your name wa—"

I stopped talking, then, struck dumb by the sheer size of the guy in front of me. Somehow I had missed this little (irony) aspect of his person; maybe I thought everyone was that big as a cat. But now that we stood not two feet away from one another, I realized that I had to crane my head back in order to look him full in the face, and he had to look very far down in order to see mine.

His attitude, however, was a far cry from his intimidating stature. His narrow eyes went wide as his jaw dropped in horror, and then he jumped back a step and pointed square at my face.

"You're that girl I hit today in dodgeball!" he bellowed. The pointing finger dropped as he crowded forward, apology plastered all over his face. "Oh wow, I am so sorry for that! I swear I didn't mean to hurt you! I mean, your nose looks fine now, but really, I didn't aim for you, honest!"

"Hey, hey, I'm fine!" I said, holding up my hands to ward him off. The height thing only got more obvious as he got closer, and closer he was getting—more with every passing second. "Back off!"

He did so immediately, withdrawing to the extreme edge of the porch with an 'eep' of embarrassment and surprise. "Sorry!" he said, and he bowed from the waist so hard that his face became parallel to the ground.

"Um... it's fine." I brushed my hair out of my face with a hand, making a show of looking bored as I studied my nails. "You said you have something of mine?"

His face lit up. "Oh, yeah, I do!" His bag popped open and he held out my neatly folded uniform. He held his arms straight out and bent himself slightly at the waist so he didn't have to come any closer, but this resulted in me having to walk nearer to him in order to get the clothes.

Of course, right when I touched the clothes, my bra fell out of them. The two of us froze as we both watched the garment tumble to the floor, and then our eyes met. My cheeks (and his) flushed.

"Ack!" Kuwabara said, spinning around to face the yard. "I swear I didn't see anything! I'm sorry!"

"Oh, uh, I was wondering where my, uh, uniform went!" I said, snatching up my clothes. The excuse I had prepared on the trip over seemed silly now, but I did my best to smooth over such an embarrassing moment. "One of my, uh, friends hid my clothes from me during gym class. She's, um, a real prankster, that one." I turned to go inside. "Thanks so much! See you tomorrow."

"Wait, Ookawa-san!" said Kuwabara, whipping around. I cursed, having made it inside but with the door gaping wide open. "I found your cat, too!" he said, eyes darting all over the porch.

"Cat?" I asked. I schooled my face into a cool mask that did not reflect my pounding heart. "I don't own a cat."

"Of course you do!" he said in protest. "I found it sitting on your clothes under the bleachers! It even had your name on its collar!"

"My name?"

"Yeah! It's collar said 'Tora.'"

"Tora," I repeated. "Tora. Tiger. That's a pretty common name for a cat."

He pulled back a bit. "But... it was on your clothes!"

"I would never take my cat to school," I said. "That is, I wouldn't take my cat to school if I owned a cat. Which I don't."

"But..." His eyes traveled to my wrist, and then his mouth dropped open. "Hey!" he said, pointing. "That's the bracelet the cat was wearing!"

My hand was behind my back faster than you can say 'catnip.' "My friend made me this!" I snapped. "I've been wearing it all day!"

"It was on the cat, I swear! A tortoiseshell tabby with dark and honey-brown stripes!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I said, and I grabbed the doorknob with the hand not emblazoned with the sparkly symbol of my guilt. "Thank you for bringing me my uniform! Have a good day!"

I then slammed the door in his face.

He knocked and rang the bell a few more times, but I just stood there with my back pressed to the door, sweat pouring from my pores as I thought about how close to discovery I had just come. My hands shook as I curled my hair behind my ears, and when I did I caught sight of the bracelet on my wrist.

_So much for being cursed for Kuwabara, _I thought as I studied the clear crystals, red strings, and metal boxes. _It's more like it cursed me _with _Kuwabara._

The thought was not one I relished, and when the knocking died down I pressed my face back to the peephole just in time to see him walk away. He shot the house one last, disappointed look before he started off down the street, broad shoulders slumped in defeat, and with a heavy heart I went to my room and laid down across my bed.

* * *

"So you went back for your bento, changed so you could crawl through a _vent_, of all things, and then you got taken home by a classmate," Dad said. The hour was late, and I had waited for Mom and Dad at the kitchen table until they got home. "He saw your new bracelet—"

"Which is very pretty, dear," Mom interjected.

"Not the point, darling," said Dad. "So this classmate of yours saw the bracelet and connected it with the cat, which you claimed you didn't own. Did it not occur to you to say that you owned the cat and have matching bracelets? I'm sure you wouldn't be the first pet-owner to do something like that."

My shoulders slumped. "The thought did not occur to me," I said thickly.

He shrugged. "Oh well. And just where, pray tell, is your school bag?"

"Under the bleachers," I said. "It was separated from the clothes, and it's black. Kuwabara didn't see it when he found my uniform."

"So you can't do your homework?" His eyes held studious thunder.

"I called Umi and she brought over a photocopy of everything," I said with a grin.

"I just love Umi," Mother said, sighing. "She's beautiful and smart and kind even if she does wear a little too much black. You know, things would be so much easier if she knew your secret."

Dad shot her a sharp look through his oval glasses. "Think about who her parents are, darling," he said patiently. "CEOs of the largest medical company in Japan, remember? They'd want her for testing if they ever caught wind of this. It's far too dangerous!"

"Oh, I know. I just wish..." She stared into space, wistful.

"Anyway, I just wanted to tell you what happened," I said as I stood up. "I need to go to bed. But if Kuwabara comes by again, we don't own a cat. In fact, we're all allergic."

"Achoo!" Mom said, and when Dad and I both stared at her she said "Just practicing!" in a voice that was far too chipper to fit the circumstances.

I groaned, because I could tell—even back then I could tell—that this situation was not going to be over anytime soon.

And when it did end, it probably would not end well.

* * *

_NOTES:_

_Connection... ESTABLISHED! Also, awkward. Also, cool beanz. I find Kuwa-chan and Tora fun to put together. She's so I'm-trying-to-be-stoic-and-cool-like-Umi-and-failing and he's so I'm-trying-to-be-nice-and-not-a-creeper-please-don't-freak-out-because-I-mean-well, and it's an odd mix, but a fun one. Soon enough more shit hits the fan, and it should prove entertaining. Buuuut for a while, before the real plot sets in, we're just gonna have some more funny shenanigans, which should prove fun. I really do have a concrete plot, though, no worries._

_Thanks for reviewing! You all rock! Saiyuri-dahlia, WickedLovelyDream, Daliha, Ashes to Ashes, DarlingSM, and msizzle!_


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